The prisoner returns to the cave. painting installation

Mounting the paintings on stands to encircle the viewer at eye level, I am attempting to intensify the viewer's immersion into this tense re-presented filmic scene. The idea is to create a claustrophobic space where in one feels the anxiety driven weight of the surrounding representations. I am falling quickly in love with the use of negative space.  

All of the paintings are in progress with some a little further along than others... 

Working with Emily Eveleth again for the thesis semester and I am very excited about what's to come...

Don't stand there looking. 30x50. oil on canvas

This may still be in progress (not quite satisfied) but it got put in a quick pop up show a few weeks ago so I thought I should repost the newest version... the title is a play with the film's subtitles  

Under paintings for new work

Time for something new... these are going to be presented in sequence surrounding the viewer. This is a play on 'negative space' and an 'immersive experience' into a 'scene/ moment/ painting'. After meeting with my mentor, I will probably be adding 2 or 4 more paintings into the sequence. The paintings will not be viewed on the wall but will be either suspended or on stands sequentially surrounding the viewer. Text/ audio is a possible next step...

These are under paintings and not finished whatsoever... each one - oil on canvas, 21x32"

 

 

 

 

Work in progress...

I will not be making major changes but will be applying many glazes and scumbles and will be working on softening all of the edges throughout... (foreground will be different)

Painting is oil on canvas, 30x50"

previews

My apologies for the lapse in posts (broken wrist on my dominant hand... getting better now)...
Here are some previews of my newest work. I am making some changes to the work and will post it in its entirety at a later point in the next week or so. Had a new conversation with my mentor yesterday morning and will post notes shortly.

new underpainting, 30x50, oil on canvas

 

First meeting with Peter Rostovsky (beware of the messy free thought/ stream of conscious type writing that plagues this blog)

Peter Rostovsky and I had our first meeting on the 27^th of July. I truly admire him as an artist, and a writer. Once we established that if I was nervous, he would be too, the meeting and conversation went well. We began the meeting with Peter having some very specific ideas as to the direction of my work but with conversation and redirection, I believe and hope we are still in the realm of my initial intentions…  

I love that, although, he is a painter, all he wanted to discuss were the ideas behind the work…

In Peter’s own work he looks for ‘moments of pure poetic enigma and he initially suggested that I look for transitional moments in the film that I do not have to artificially reassemble… moments that were already present. What I am doing now he considers interesting but more of a surrealist approach in how I use special effects and create a fictional moment. In his own work, he looks for the uncanniness of the image itself… We both address the question of how to make an image more ambiguous… What I pressed him to consider is the values I see in my current method such as the layering, the abstraction, and the manner in how we each see/ remember moments differently… reconstructed according to our own understanding/ meaning.  

Our compromise…. Finish this painting as he believes it has potential to be a really interesting painting… In the future, try looking for moments less layered and more pure. 

Attitude of mining the film as it might be too simple and overdone but it is something to consider.

I like the playfulness of my work and he sees that and agrees that it is interesting but asks me to consider looking differently as an exercise. If I am to do a immersive scene for my viewer… representing a scene in different ways… possibly, looking for a transitional pre-existing moment in the scene could be one of the ways... 

Definite advice… be less random in my choices. In addition, look for moments the film does what I want it to accomplish for me.

The significance of the painting process – “whats the point?” – the paint becomes another phase of translation… take great liberties or make the choice not to…

Play with abstraction… cropping…

Concept of The Formless… something that sits between categories and undoes them

Roland Barthes… Camera Lucida… the punctum – moment in the photograph with the still image that really resonates with the viewer … elaborated with the third meaning which is the meaning that is in a way inexplicable… goes against the curve and dislodges the scene…

Punctum is not intentional… haunts the photograph…exists for the viewer… Can be isolated and staged

Interesting thought… “the punctum is something you see and that you project upon the film yourself”

Painters to look at… Judith Eisler, Kaye Donachie, Velasquez

Director … Chris Marker… Sans Soleil and La Jetee

Photographer … Uta Barth

Thought to take away… It might be possible to continue in the same direction but to also look for moments that do not need to be so over freighted with special effects…

And yet, I like the special effect so, ... we'll see. 

still in progress, 35x60, oil on canvas

preview...

New underpainting ... roughly 35"x60" ... stretched canvas

still in progress but slowing down and giving it a breather

35x50, oil on paper mounted on wood panel

A preview

 

I will post this in its entirety on Saturday... not yet ready as I am also busy experimenting with a couple of paint studies and another underpainting. Trying to really explore how I paint.

 

 

Under painting, 50x35, oil on paper to be mounted on board....

Work in progress

Not finished, but I am slowing down with this one until I get Hannah's feedback. Concentrating on the underpainting for the double exposure...more visuals coming your way soon...

First Meeting with Hannah Barrett

Last Friday, I drove to Brooklyn to meet with Hannah for the first time. Upon meeting her, I was immediately struck by her presence... confident, refined, at ease... well spoken and inquisitive. She was very welcoming and was eager to share with me her work space and paintings. Her unconventional androgynous portraiture was so much larger in scale than I expected it to be... even casually placed amidst her studio their presence filled the room. Realizing them, I have started to question my own ideas of social normality.

Conversing with Hannah is a volley back and forth. She wants to know my background, my taste, personal interests and more. Generously, she seems to want to share her own interests and process in return. She will be sending me artists to look at and I will be emailing her my responses to them. I believe working with her will be a very beneficial experience towards better discovering who I am as a painter and as an artist.  

As for the work... I came in with the movie still painting that I was working on as a preliminary painting to the double exposure still (composed in Photoshop) I was prepping which I wanted to challenge myself with afterwards. What was I thinking in beginning this study... just what I was told in one of my critiques... "Stop being such a pleaser!". I knew I should have probably waited for my meeting with Hannah to start anything major and that I had discussed doing small assignments/ studies in painting the figure. Yet,  I said... oh well... I want to paint film, to paint voyeurism, the social interactions that cause me to stare... to challenge myself. I have an idea so I will try it and if I need to change.... deal with that later.

If the concept is unclear here it is because if there is one I am not explaining it to myself or anyone else. I am working on something I find interesting and enjoy.

To my surprise, she thinks its very good direction for my work and is on board. I had a couple of friends ready to help and model for me for this semester but Hannah and I have decided to hold off for the time being as this will keep me quite busy for a while.., possibly returning to the idea later on in the semester.

Since meeting she has had me go to Home Depot collecting paint sample cards in developing a palette for the initial study ( right now it is just an under painting). She does this for her own work and showed me a book of her own paint cards. As my sources images, especially when I work on the double exposure, are quite complex, she is encouraging me to consider the work in sections...or the table setting, the figures, the mirrored background... and so on. I am not to be afraid of using neutrals and to consider my choices on which parts of the image I paint in detail and what I leave unsaid.

to be continued.....

Under painting for a study for my first work ...

.... explanations to come at a later point.... 20x28.5, oil on paper

Final three works for the last residency

 

30x40, oil on wood panel (not entirely finished)

 

30x40, oil on wood panel (ditto)

 

40x30, oil on wood panel

 

(With the new semester, I am moving on to other work... I intend to come back to these when and if they are shown again either in or outside of the graduate school program)

Foot Study

This is the final study.... oil on paper, 22 1/2" x 30"

 

 

 

 

and this is the tonal exercise... oil on paper, 12"x16"

Fourth meeting with Emily

changes I will be making to the work I brought with me............. Besides making a more subtler transition on the shoulder I am going to be considering the self portrait (first work) to be done for the time being. It is nice to let myself move on. The second work is where my focus will be over the next week while also preparing for the third.  Foot study is a playful exercise and I will be carry ideas over from it but will no longer be currently playing with that particular image. (I like the energy of the foot painting as it is)
.......... I realized the other day that because this is a google blog my works appear in a google search so.... as a result of that discovery I have decided not to post the third work until it is much closer to where I am comfortable with it being made public. (some of the exercises drive me insane looking at them now and oh how I wish I could pull them offline.)

topics of interest discussed.... 

I am trying to use the writing/ studying/ reading component of this program as a tool to work in conjunction with my work and as a result of this Emily and I often discuss the topics for my papers and the feedback I receive from Stuart (my advisor).

Art and feminism....
Possibly the male //female gaze issue is done or is done as far as my art is concerned. Don't get me wrong... I believe it is still relevant and a terrifying issue but I wonder if the answer is continuing to directly attack it. "Visual transformation through contemporary media" In my work, I am interested in dealing more with the gaze of the female to other females and or herself..... maybe even just how individuals/ human beings look at each other and or themselves .......and how this is changed, improved, or stunted by modern day visual mediums / technologies/ life styles. These thoughts are still in development.

The video element of my work... more like skyping, face time, or web cam..... interesting for me to consider.

Close up nature of my work.... making things larger... ties it to video/ photography
(when movies don't have close ups we miss them) ....... these means allow work that capture gestures, movements and moments that the eye cannot.....

John Copland.... exploring....
Bill Viola.....
Chantal Ackerman (painting at the MFA) .... Skype based....
.... need to go see it....

I am considering a more abstract/ different direction for the last work. (more later.) I do want to do collage work and I have been learning in photoshop but I am thinking that I would like to address that over the next residency after receiving feedback. Basically I need more time and conversation to really think that through and I have another avenue I currently want to explore... all very vague.... more later.

Painting.... ART.... who is the audience? Artists such as Emily are amazed by the variety of people who come to see her work.... And if painting was going to die... why isn't it dead already? Also... art is a commodity so....... is painting the only form of it that is being collected by the wealthy? And possibly art itself has a market that is shrinking and if so and or if it is only the art of painting that is undergoing this plight.... can this be combatted and how? Can it be presented differently? Is it the fault of the art? The ideas presented? Or is it that using a two dimensional presentation is the stagnant idea?   (Clearly I need to learn more! These are not factual statements and are only the reflections of my thoughts from recent conversations.....)

Painting is for me more of a practice... part of the creative process... it is important because of painting (a very humanistic practice and a close physical study... a physical bringing back of the work... I need to find a better way to say this better ....) not because of the finished work although I am not currently interested in making provisional paintings per se .... I would like my work to be about the entire process... the developing performative element and the other visual mediums as well as the choice to paint as part of my practice.....

What is taboo? (I don't love bad rules.) What is an unacceptable image, or topic and why? Can I paint Dieunie? I am going to and I am painting her as an individual.
Can I paint a nude with a piece of clothing? Do I want to? Unsure.  (more later. )

So so much to say but I need to work on my painting and my paper.....

First Friday was awesome. Great social/ networking experience with other students. Emily's exhibit was very inspiring... also I really enjoy AB Miner and Franklin Evan's installation juddpaintings
.........

First major work... 30x40, oil on wood panel

This is still may be in progress as I may change it again, especially, after my next meeting with Emily on Nov. 4th. As of today, I have stopped work on it and am now entirely concentrating on the next two which will be posted as works in progress before my meeting.